New York City recently had a two year stretch where we had no measurable snow. This is unusual. Thankfully, recent snowfalls have given us all a chance to get outside and play. There wasn’t much snow, but children (and their grown ups) don’t need much to have fun. When I was running in the park, I saw villages of snow people, broken sleds, snowball fights, and sledding. Some sledding was happening on snowy hills (the NYC Parks Department puts hay bales by trees to protect trees and sledders from collision). Some sledding was happening on muddy hills that used to be snowy. There was a lot of laughter and joy. I loved it!

A snowy day is a reminder of the importance of play.

When our school opened in the 2009-2010 school year, we were in the throes of the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top policy initiatives. We had 50 kindergarteners that first year and a commitment to developmentally appropriate practice. For the first staff book club, we read Vivian Paley’s book, A Child’s Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play (2005). As a school leader, I quickly realized that it would be hard work to hold on to the idea of play in kindergarten in this particular era. My metaphor of choice was that we were on a sailboat headed towards the island of developmentally appropriate practice but we kept getting blown off course towards the island of “academic rigor” in kindergarten. It took continuous effort to keep our boat on course!

Every year, when I spoke to prospective parents about our school and our program, I emphasized the importance of play. I frequently referenced Dr. Stuart Brown’s book, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (2010). I felt like I needed to convince the parents that play in school is a good thing. Heck, if the Google engineers get a Lego room to play in and the Jet Propulsion Lab recognizes the importance of rich play lives and histories for their teams, why don’t we want our kids to engage with it? Play builds social skills, problem solving, and out of the box thinking. It lets us tap into our strengths and gives us joy supporting our mental health. Play invigorates our lives and helps us be better humans.

I chanced upon a book last spring, Cultivating Imagination in Leadership, by Gillian Judson and Meaghan Dougherty (2023). They begin the introduction by clarifying that engaging in imagination is not solely the work of childhood fantasy play. We have to be able to “imagine a future that is different – just and equitable – before we create it.” And they “invite readers to think about imagination as like fertile soil out of which leadership practices grow” as a tool we use to create and articulate our vision for the work and with which we navigate the needs of our communities and the structures and road blocks we encounter as we strive to provide programs and create a culture that will improve the lives of our families and communities. Play, as children and as adults, feeds our ability to imagine.